James Webb Space Telescope's stunning image of 'Sombrero Galaxy' has people saying 'we can't be alone in the universe'
Topics: Space, Social Media, Twitter, Instagram, NASA
Ellie Kemp
Featured Image Credit: Dima_zel/NASA/Getty Images
Topics: Space, Social Media, Twitter, Instagram, NASA
NASA's James Webb Telescope has captured unbelievable new photos of a galaxy that's 30 million light years away from Earth.
Dubbed the Sombrero Galaxy for its hat-like shape, its pure existence has left many questioning their own place in the universe.
Located a mind-boggling 283.8 million trillion kilometers (176.4 million trillion miles) away, it's found on the edge of a group of galaxies called the Virgo Cluster.
The US space agency launched the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on December 25 2021.
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The most powerful cosmic telescope ever built, it uses infrared - a type of invisible light - to examine the universe.
Over the years, it's beamed back some incredible scenes, like this 'insane' photo of Uranus and its 17 rings.
More recently, it's shown us the Sombrero Galaxy - real name Messier 104 - in more detail.
The stunning new snaps were taken with JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and shared by NASA on June 3.
They reveal the galaxy's 'central bulge' of stars and the dust in its outer disk, giving researchers deeper insights into its structure and history.
Sombrero is huge; roughly the size of 800 billion of our Suns - which is boggling my mind to even comprehend, right?
From Earth, it looks like the Mexican headwear because we’re viewing it almost side-on.
The space around the galaxy, meanwhile, is also in full view.
We get a snapshot of the galaxies and stars surrounding the Sombrero - including some red giants, which I must say, are pretty cool.
"The variety of their colors provides astronomers with clues about their characteristics, such as their distance from Earth," NASA explains.
Scientists believe the galaxy may have had a violent past, possibly merging with another galaxy.
Why? Well, its inner disk appears 'warped' and it's home to around 2,000 tight groups of old stars - known as globular clusters - held together by gravity.
These stars are, surprisingly, different to each other, so it's unlikely they formed together.
Reacting to the astonishing photos over on Instagram, space enthusiasts appeared both awe-struck and existential.
One commented: "There is no way we’re alone in the universe," as a second social media user pondered: "I wonder if they ever find pictures of our galaxy and wonder if we’re here."
A third wrote: "My mind hurts trying to comprehend how overwhelmingly immense the distance is between everything in this photo."
"Space is beautiful but scary," another concluded, as someone else shared a gripe they have with our modern-day smartphones.
"You mean we have the technology to take a picture of a galaxy 30mil light years away and I still can’t get a decent picture of the moon?"
It's a fair point!